THEORIES

OF DEVELOPMENT
 ROBERT HAVIGHURST
DEVELOPMENTAL TASK
THEORY
 ROBERT HAVIGHURST
❑June 5, 1900 – January 31, 1991
❑chemist and physicist, educator
and expert on human development
and aging
❑emphasized that learning is basic
and that it continues throughout life
span
 ROBERT HAVIGHURST’S DEVELOPMENTAL TASK THEORY

STAGES AGE DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS

1. Learning to walk
2. Learning to take solid foods
3. Learning to talk
INFANCY 4. Learning to control the elimination of body
AND 0-6 wastes
EARLY years 5. Learning sex differences and sexual modesty
CHILDHOOD 6. Forming simple concepts and learning
language to describe social and physical reality
7. Getting ready to read
 1. Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary
games
2. Building wholesome attitudes toward oneself as
a growing organism
3. Learning to get along with age-mates
4. Learning an appropriate masculine or feminine
MIDDLE 6 – 12 social role
CHILDHOOD years 5. Developing fundamental skills in reading,
writing and calculating
6. Developing concepts necessary for everyday
living
7. Developing conscience, morality and a scale of
values
8. Achieving personal independence
9. Developing attitudes toward social
groups and institutions
 1. Achieving new and more mature relations with age-
mates of both sexes
2. Achieving a masculine or feminine social role
3. Accepting one’s physique and using the body
effectively
ADOLE- 12-18 4. Achieving emotional independence from parents
SCENCE years and other adults
5. Preparing for marriage and family life.
6. Selecting and preparing for an occupation
7. Developing intellectual skills and concepts for
civic competence
8. Desiring and achieving socially responsible
behavior
9.Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a
guide to behavior
 1. Selecting a mate
2. Learning to live with a partner
EARLY 18-30 3. Starting a family
ADULT years 4. Rearing children
HOOD 5. Managing a home
6. Getting started in an occupation
7. Taking on civic responsibility
8. Finding a congenial social group
 1. Achieving adult civic and social
responsibility
2. Establishing and maintaining an economic
standard of living
3. Assisting teenage children to become
MIDDLE 30 - 60 responsible and happy adults
AGE years 4. Developing adult leisure-time activities
5. Relating oneself to one’s spouse as a
person
6. Accepting and adjusting to the physiologic
changes of middle age
7. Adjusting to aging parents
 1. Adjusting to decreasing physical strength
and health
2. Adjusting to retirement and reduced
LATER 60 years income
MATU- and up 3. Adjusting to death of a spouse
RITY 4. Establishing an explicit affiliation with
one’s age group
5. Meeting social and civil obligations
6. Establishing satisfactory physical living
arrangements.